The Crash Course - Chris Martenson [99]
Instead of thinking of the dollar costs associated with chasing after 0.2 percent copper ore, I want you to think of the energy costs, because those are what are going to shape the future. Remember how difficult it is to instantly appreciate nonlinear curves? Another nonlinear curve relates to the amount of energy required to go after and produce metals and other minerals that must be extracted from depleting ore bodies. Figure 19.1 and Figure 19.2 illustrate the declining quality of mineral ores.
Figure 19.1 Ratios of Mined Ore to Produce One Pound of Mineral or Metal
Figure 19.2 Pounds of Ore to Create One Pound of Refined Mineral
It’s clear that the energy requirement of chasing depleting ore bodies is very much a nonlinear story. Assuming that the ore is coming from mines that are a similar depth and distance from the processing mill, every decrease in the ore concentration requires a big increase in the amount of ore that is removed for processing to obtain the same amount of the desired material. This is ore that must be broken away from surrounding material, transported, crushed, and refined. Every step is energy intensive.
One trait that humans share with all animals is that we go after the easiest, highest-quality sources of materials first. That’s just natural. Those that are more concentrated and nearer to the surface (or markets) are preferentially exploited first. We tend to farm the best soils first, harvest the tallest trees, and go after the most concentrated ore bodies. It’s a process called “high grading,” and it simply means doing the obvious: using up the best and most convenient stuff before the other stuff. Which means that by the time we’re chasing the less-attractive ores as a second order of business, there’s a very good chance that these ores are inconveniently located, perhaps deeper in the ground or in a more remote location, or both, and/or in more dilute form. Because of this, as we go forward, the energy required to chase the lesser ores will be even more than is implied by a simple chart comparing the ore percentages to processing amounts.
Quite simply, the key point here is this: To get more and more minerals from depleting ore bodies in the future won’t require just a little bit more energy, it will require exponentially more energy.
Economic Growth and Minerals
The economy, which I’ve attempted to convince you is due for a shake-up, depends on ever-increasing flows of materials (and energy) running through it. That’s what an exponentially increasing economy implies—more stuff in ever-increasing quantities. The predicament is that sooner or later this will no longer be possible, because there’s a limit to all resources. Even the most pie-in-the-sky optimists admit that eventually there will be limits, although some cling fast to the belief that those limits are still very far off in the future, maybe even too far off to concern ourselves with at this time.
One of the favorite devices used by such optimists is to state that we have many remaining decades of resources x, y, and z “at current rates of consumption.” The problem with that, as I hope you can now immediately appreciate, is that an exponential economy cannot be satisfied with “current rates of consumption” because that amounts to the same thing as saying “zero growth.” Our particular brand of economy is based on ever-increasing amounts of everything flowing through it. More money, more debt, more gasoline, more cars, more minerals, more profits, more buildings, more clothes, more, more, more of everything.
So if you ever hear the phrase “at current rates of consumption